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Ovid did not lose his citizenship and never gave up hope of returning to Rome, as revealed in the many poems written to his friends during his exile at Tomi, but his requests and those of his friends were unsuccessful.

Ovid was one of the most influential of Roman poets during the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) and the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century).

Ovid, often alluded to in poetry by his other name of Naso, was born in the year 43 B.C. He was educated for public life and held some offices of considerable dignity, but poetry was his delight, and he early resolved to devote himself to it.

He was intimate with the family of Augustus, the emperor, and it is supposed that some serious offence given to some member of that family was the cause of an event which reversed the poet's happy circumstances and clouded all the latter portion of his life.

Ovid took Greek mythology as his inspiration, and transformed diverse legends into an elegant compilation, with the idea of metamorphosis or change as his guiding principle.

Ovid's life in the years after his liberation was that of a poet and man-about-town.

It was, Ovid says, the result of his having eyes, and the most widely accepted suggestion is that he had somehow become aware of the licentious behavior of the Emperor's daughter Julia (who was banished in the same year as he) without his informing Augustus about her.

In antiquity itself the influence of Ovid on all subsequent writers of elegiac and hexameter verse was inescapable, even for those writers who were consciously attempting to return to earlier, Virgilian standards; and his stories, particularly from the Metamorphoses, were a major source for the illustrations of artists.

Ovid's father, who was a respected member of the equestrian order, expected Ovid to become a lawyer and official and had him schooled extensively for that purpose.

Ovid's elegance, both in verse and comportment, made him a favorite among the moneyed class of Rome, and it was not long before Ovid was widely hailed as the most brilliant poet of his generation.

What is certain is that in AD 8 Ovid was sent to the bleak fishing-village of Tomi for what he describes as "a poem and a mistake", Ovid attempted on numerous occasions to find his way back into the good graces of Augustus, writing poems to the emperor and other influential friends.

Ovid’s greatest accomplishment is his reaslisation that women played a real role in happy relationships and also experienced desires, as did men, making his greatest accomplishment therefore the Ars Amatoria.

Ovid's account is the earliest in extant literature, although the story is much older, found on 6th century vases.

Ovid seems to have believed in art for pleasure's sake, having no ethical agenda for his writings, unlike his predecessor Virgil, who wrote for the betterment of Romans.

Ovid's other works include: Medea (a tragedy, no longer extant), Heroides (letters to legendary heroes from their wives; read them here), The Art of Love (advice on how to seduce a woman; scandalous in Augustus' time, one possible reason for Ovid's banishment in 8 AD), the Fasti (a poetic calendar of religious festivals).

Unlike Vergil and Horace who lived through the civil wars that marked the violent end of the Roman Republic, Ovid was the first major Roman Poet to come of age wholly in the Augustan Age--the beginning of the Roman Empire.

The death of his elder brother made Ovid the focus of his family's hopes and so he went to Rome, studied rhetoric with the famous teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, and embarked on a career in government.

Ovid began by writing love poetry, and he wrote at least one play in the earlier part of his career.

One of the most prolific poets of Rome's Golden Age, Ovid, the name by which Publius Ovidius Naso is commonly known, specialized in the witty and sophisticated treatment of love in all its permutations.

Ovid himself deliberately obscured them (as did the emperor), merely referring to a poem of his and some mistake.

Ovid's poetry falls into three divisions: the works of his youth, of his middle age, and of his years in exile.

www.island-of-freedom.com /OVID.HTM (653 words)

The Classic Text: Ovid(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)

Ovid found his true calling however in poetry, and following the completion of his education in Athens, he settled in Rome.

Ovid was soon exiled from the city under two charges -- one for his poem, and the other for not revealing evidence relating to the royal family.

Ovid maintained his property but left Rome in 8 A.D. for Tomis, a frontier fortress.

The importance of such classical authors as Ovid to the art, music, and literature of western civilization is legendary, yet many are not familiar with the original works that have provided this inspiration.

Some plates from a 1640 edition of the translation done by George Sandys are also available.

The Ovid Project is hosted by the University of Vermont and is edited by Hope Greenberg.

Ovid offers not an epic narrative like his predecessors but promises a chronological account of the cosmos from creation to his own day, incorporating many myths and legends from the Greek and Roman traditions.

Augustus banished Ovid in A.D. to Tomis on the Black Sea for reasons that remain mysterious (Ovid himself wrote that it was because of an 'error' and a 'carmen' - a mistake and a poem).

Ovid Illustrated: The Reception of Ovid'sMetamorphoses in Image and Text

Garth paraphrase are cross-linked so that users may browse or search both texts together; via the "New Window" links at the start of each book, you may now browse the Latin with Sandys' 1632 verse and Kline's modern prose renderings as well.

The fifth link on this page is to our growing archive of pictorial and textual responses to Ovid's great poem, featuring many lavish cycles of Ovid illustrations and a medley of audacious and cautious reworkings and readings in Latin, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, and English; click the icons